Everybody likes having choices. This is true whether you are talking about lunch or deploying to a private cloud. When IBM Workload Deployer v3.0 was first introduced it included a pattern type for our Database-as-a-Service offering. The DBaaS PatternType v1 provided substantial value in an easy to use form factor to get a database up and running quickly and then provided the necessary tools to manage that environment. Pretty impressive for a first release! But the story doesn't end there. IBM Workload Deployer v3.1 brings an updated version of this pattern type that builds upon this foundation and adds even more capabilities and more choices.

Some of you may not be familiar with the Workload Deployer Database-as-a-Service offering so let me give you a brief introduction. Database-as-a-Service patterns allow you to define and deploy database applications into your private cloud environment with speed and consistency. These offerings also provide integrated management and monitoring capabilities. The Database-as-a-Service capability can be used in conjunction with a web application pattern (Patterns -> Virtual Applications, IBM Web Application Pattern) by including a database component in a pattern connected the web application components to use it. In this case the web application and database are deployed and managed as a unified solution with a common life-cycle as shown in the pattern below.

Database patterns can also be created and deployed as standalone entities (Patterns -> Database Patterns) that have their own life-cycle, independent of the virtual web application(s) that use the database. What's more, you can leverage these stand-alone databases from applications both inside and outside your private cloud.

Whether you use a stand-alone database pattern or one that is part of a web application pattern, the attributes and capabilities of the database are consistent.

So what is new in this release? For starters, the DBaaS PatternType has been renamed and the capabilities expanded. For Workload Deployer v3.1 the pattern is delivered as the IBM Database Patterns v1.1 and includes several elements to provide predefined configurations: the IBM Transaction Database Pattern and the IBM Data Mart Pattern.

Before we take a closer look at the new features I just want to alert you to one thing. Before you can leverage any of these new features you first need to accept the licenses and configure the plugins for the database pattern types. So look at the link and follow the directions if you would like to along and you aren't seeing the same options in your IBM Workload Deployer V3.1 system.

Using the screen shot above as a reference, let's take a look at what you can specify when creating a database pattern. You start with a name for the pattern and an optional pattern description. You also specify the maximum user data space size and an optional schema file. These are pretty basic and were all available with in the previous release. Another really nice feature that has also been available since the first release is the ability to specify a compatibility mode for DB2 and Oracle (a nice feature if you are looking to move content from existing databases).

Some of the new enhancements appear in the middle of the view; the purpose and source. The purpose specifies if this database is to be used for production or non-production (test and development). Your selection will optimize license management for deployed instances of this pattern.

The source field lets you specify a database configuration to be used to provision this database. You can choose from two different provisioning approaches; applying a workload standard or cloning from a database image. When choosing apply a workload standard you select between two predefined, optimized database configurations. These configurations will run a set of scripts to tune the operating system and instance configuration for the database. The departmental transactional standard is optimized for online transaction processing applications while the data mart standard is optimized for data mining purposes and is therefore more suitable for reporting applications. If those aren't exactly what you want but you have an existing database you can use the clone from a database image approach by selecting an existing database image backup as a model for the new database pattern. When using the clone method metadata from the backup is retrieved and a DB2 restore command is used to set the same configuration for the new database instance. Reference the cloning from a database image topic in the IBM Database Patterns information center for more details.

Once the pattern has been created you can deploy the pattern to a target cloud group or an environment profile (another new feature for database deployments in IBM Workload Deployer V3.1).

I hope you can see the value that has been added with the source configuration choices and the ability to clone an existing configuration. They are certainly substantial new features of the Database-as-a-Service solution in Workload Deployer V3.1. However, there are a number of other significant enhancements that I would just like to mention as well. In other posts we've discussed the new ability to deploy virtual applications to run on AIX with a PowerVM hypervisor. As you might expect this same ability is also available to deploy database patterns to run on AIX systems leveraging PowerVM. Management capabilities have also been significantly enhanced with the ability to configure automated database backups using the IBM Tivoli Storage Manager. These features and many other aspect of the Database-as-a-Service model are detailed in the IBM Database Patterns information center and the IBM Workload Deployer information center. My goal here has not been to replicate our product documentation - it is rather my goal to provide a few highlights and provide pointers to help you get started. I hope it has been useful.

You can be sure that we will continue enhancing and improving our Database-as-a-Service offering in IBM Workload Deployer. Please provide your feedback so that we can make it even better.